Some background first, I’ve played the FIFA Series pretty much non-stop since the first game, FIFA International Soccer, back in roughly 1994. In college, I also got hooked on SI Games’ Championship Manager series. Like many, I stopped playing CM after I realized that my odds of future procreation dropped measurably after each “season” I played.

Anyway, on with the fun…

Running away from the ref about to book you in FIFA International Soccer. Few things were funnier to fifth-grade me and my second-grade brother than the fluky little error in the first FIFA game that allowed you to, after a nasty foul, to run around the field for three minutes chased by the referee trying desperately to book you. Eventually the referee would give up, stop running, and issue a red card. It was so worth it.

The infamous dive button on FIFA RTWC 98. Easily, the most realistic feature ever to be included in a soccer game, pressing a two-button combo allowed your player to yelp and fall to the ground, occasionally drawing the referee into fouls and even penalties. I am not sure that any feature has caused my brother, my long-time FIFA nemesis, to go as apoplectic as when I’d run into the penalty area, run out of ideas, and just fall to turf as soon as one of his defenders got near me to draw a penalty.

Blocking punts in FIFA 97. First of all, this was about the only redeemable factor in what was an otherwise really bad year for the series. It was inexplicably really easy to to just stand in front of the punting goalkeeper and block the punt behind him, leading to an easy goal. This was another sure way to end up fighting with your opponent.

Real players in FIFA 1996. At the time, I am not entirely sure I noticed that the immortal fake players (remember Brian Plank and Bruce McMillian?) of the past two FIFAs were replaced with real players, but if I remember correctly, Matt Le Tessier and Marco Van Basten were unstoppable on this game.

The FIFA RTWC 98 intro. Still good to this day.
[ame=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCJ4RuBROcU”%5DYouTube – FIFA’98 (RTWC) Intro[/ame]
Introducing Andy Gray to an American audience. See, folks like Jack Bell thought that Americans first heard the dulcet tones of the bald Scotsman during Euro 2008, in fact, many younger folks had already been introduced to him through his constant cliche repetition on FIFA. Who amongst us doesn’t twitch when we hear, “this throw-in’s as good as a corner?” His pre-match flirting with John Motson was legendary, I remember them discussing a pre-match Sangria as the before everytime you played at the Nou Camp. I don’t think I even knew what Sangria was at the time.

The music. Over the years, the FIFA series has featured some legitimately good music including Blur, Fatboy Slim, Timo Maas and Moby. The less said about the Robbie Williams song, the better though.

You can’t stop Alexander Farnerud, you can only hope to contain him.
The players on CM who are great in the game but aren’t nearly as good in real life. Every CM player can think of them. Here are a few that immediately come to mind, Alexander Farnerud, Jhonnier Montano, Jonas Lunden, the great Anatoli Todorov… I even remember some of the guys that the game made up who starred for me on my great double Champions League-winning run with Celtic. No one could stop my young Italian strike pairing of Claudio Del Nevo and Marco Di Napoli.

The A-League and its players inclusion in FIFA 96. Raise your hand if you ever thought that Peter Hattrup or Shawn Medved would find themselves in a video game? Well, believe it or not, he did.

Explaining CM to outsiders. “See it’s like a normal game, but you don’t get to see the players actually do anything. You just read what they’re doing in text form. But, believe me, you have no idea how cool this is.” And then of course later on you had to explain how, “yes they’re dots, but they’re tactical dots.”

So, those are just some of my favorite moments, especially from the earlier days of soccer gaming. What are yours?

Postscript: I do not want the comments to turn into another raging battle between FIFA people and Pro Evo “truthers.” I Feel free to talk about your Pro Evo moments if you want, but we’re not going to have a FIFA/Pro Evo debate here.

So, referee Howard Webb came out on radio and admitted that he now feels the penalty he awarded to Manchester United in their 5-2 win over Tottenham on Saturday was a mistake.

The article, posted at Soccernet, details Webb’s appearance on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. Read it here. Here’s a highlight:

There, see that? Was that really all that difficult? Webb can’t change history. He can’t go back in time and undo the call. And he can’t help Tottenham grow a pair and not fold faster than paper at an origami class.

But Webb can admit his mistake and move on. And I applaud him for it, and you keep an eye out to make sure he doesn’t make a similar mistake again. The fact that he will put in work to see where he went wrong is very encouraging and professional.

Now, would it have been that difficult to hear the same thing from Jair Maruffo after his colossal foul ups in the DC-LA game during Major League Soccer’s opening week – one on a handball and one for not stopping play with two players suffering head injuries? There never was an explanation that I saw, there never was a statement, nothing. When I covered MLS for the newspaper I worked for several years ago, and such a controversial situation occurred, a pool reporter was selected from the press box and was allowed to ask the referee three questions, and all the writers could then use the information. I don’t know if this policy is still in place, and if it’s not, it’s an abomination in this situation.

Course, now we read here, there, and everywhere that Maruffo may have received a gift in the form of a jersey from the Fire’s Cuauhtemoc Blanco following Chicago’s 2-2 draw with Columbus over the weekend. The Crew led, 2-0, before Crew defender Gino Padula was sent off for a foul on Blanco. The Fire scored twice, everyone gets a point, and Blanco was allegedly seen tossing his jersey into the official’s room.

It is natural – but not correct – to now be convinced that something sinister was at work not only Saturday, but in the aforementioned DC-LA game, too. If we had ever gotten an explanation from Marrufo for his actions that day, the perception battle wouldn’t be so hard to win. If, say three days after the game, Marrufo released a statement through US Soccer and/or MLS, noting his errors, apologizing for them, and explaining what he thought he saw in the heat of the moment – some fans would still have been all over him, I’m sure, but the openness of communication and the ability for the public to understand his thought process would have made things a lot better.

Having never done that, and now having his name associated with another issue – one that potentially (and that’s a big word there) has far greater consequences than a bad penalty call and a worse game management decision, there will probably be fans that will go back and wonder if what they saw was above board both back in March and this past weekend.

I’m 99.995% sure that it was.

It’s the 0.005% reamining that creates the problem right now.

The sooner the right folks get to the bottom of everything, the better. And the more openness with which they do it … well, that wouldn’t hurt either.

On the face of it, it sounds pretty damning. That said, we’re dealing with Blanco here. Is it possible that he just chucked his shirt into the locker room in plain sight just to attempt to get Marrufo in trouble? A simple way to find that out is to find out whether Marrufo kept the jersey. If he just tossed it right back out or gave it to Fire or Crew officials, than he’s clearly off the hook. But if Marrufo still has possession of that shirt, I think a long suspension should be in order.

Of course, hurting Marrufo’s case even more here (and damaging my dastardly-Blanco theory, as well) is the penalty call that went in favor of the fire.

It’s going to be very interesting to see who now goes over there and if some folks affiliated with ESPN suddenly are asked to decline that trip to South Africa.

Goff is dead-on correct here, of course. I don’t have a huge problem with individual bloggers going if they’re up front with the readers about how they were able to go, but for ESPN’s bloggers from an ostensibly journalistic institution to take a freebie like this is absolutely over the line.

Early comment thread scuttlebutt on the GoffBlog lists Canales and Galarcep as possible targets.

There are about a million reasons to like AFC Wimbledon, the club setup by fans after Wimbledon FC was moved off to Milton Keynes. Last weekend they wrapped up promotion to the Blue Square Premier League, one level away from the Football League. The video above includes the highlights and trophy presentation, but I want you to pay particular attention to St. Albans City’s goalkeeper, who behaves throughout the entire match like a complete lunatic, charging out, screaming and yelling at his defenders whenever something goes wrong.

My personal favorite is the guy who sounds a little bit like Andrew Dice Clay yelling about what a “disgrace it is.” If you wait until the end, you get to hear Giants Stadium described as a “temple of football” too.

Am I piling on the Red Bulls fans? Of course. But with Carver making the best decision that TFC will make all year, I felt an urge to shake-up my targets a bit.